- Japan: 15 years after Fukushima meltdown, an innkeeper makes radiation surveys to revitalize her hometown
Source: SFGate
“Fifteen years after the 2011 nuclear disaster, color-coded radiation maps hang on the wall of Futabaya Ryokan, the family-run inn Tomoko Kobayashi operates in her near-deserted hometown in northeastern Fukushima. Kobayashi conducted her own radiation surveys before reopening the inn in 2016. Now, she and other monitors share radiation data as part of efforts to rebuild this once-bustling textile town. ‘These empty lots used to be filled with shops,’ Kobayashi says of the pre-disaster town as she heads to a radiation monitoring lab, walking past a kindergarten she attended as a child. It’s now used as a museum because there are too few children since the nuclear crisis. ‘There used to be businesses, community activity and children playing,’ she says. ‘We used to live our ordinary daily lives here, and I hope to see that again.’ Only about one-third of Odaka’s pre-disaster population of 13,000 have returned over the past decade.” (03/10/26)
- SpaceX Weighs Nasdaq Listing As Valuation Targets 1.75 Trillion Dollars
Source: Business World
“Elon Musk’s SpaceX is considering listing its shares on the Nasdaq as the rocket and satellite company explores options for a future public offering that could rank among the largest in history. People familiar with the discussions said the company is evaluating the technology focused exchange for its potential debut, although plans remain under consideration and have not been finalised. As part of the preparations for a possible listing, SpaceX has also explored the possibility of securing early inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 index. The index tracks some of the largest non financial companies listed on the Nasdaq and is closely followed by institutional investors worldwide. Early entry into the index could significantly boost demand for the company’s shares because index funds and exchange traded funds that track the Nasdaq 100 would be required to add the stock to their portfolios.” (03/10/26)
- Poland: Nawrocki refuses to sign law to tap 44 billion euros in EU defense loans
Source: SFGate
“Polish President Karol Nawrocki refused Tuesday to sign a law enabling Poland to access almost 44 billion euros in preferential defense loans facilitated by the European Union, claiming it would be wrong to make Poland more dependent on Brussels. Instead, the president proposed an alternative draft law suggesting national resources that could be used instead of European loans to pay for further investments in defense. Subsequent Polish governments have boosted Poland’s defense spending since Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022. But while the liberal government led by Donald Tusk is happy to coordinate efforts with the European Union, the nationalist president has proven more euro-skeptic and maintained a friendlier rapport with the Trump administration. Since taking office last year, Nawrocki has positioned himself as a main opponent of the influential prime minister, repeatedly vetoing laws proposed by the executive.” (03/10/26)
- Hungary: Orban orders regime to hold some $82 million in stole Ukrainian cash and gold
Source: ABC News
“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has ordered that a shipment of Ukrainian cash and gold [stolen] last week by Hungarian authorities be held in custody for up to 60 days while his country’s tax authority investigates the case. The gold and the money was being transported through Hungary by road when Hungary [stole] it last Thursday. Authorities said they suspected money laundering. The shipment included $40 million and 35 million euros in cash, as well as 9 kilograms (19.8 pounds) of gold — worth, based on the current exchange rates, about $82 million. The [theft] has outraged Ukrainian authorities who accused Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of acting illegally.” (03/10/26)
- Uber rolls out women-only option
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Uber has launched a feature allowing female drivers and passengers across the US to request trips with other women on the ride-hailing app. The feature was piloted in the US last year and led to women feeling ‘more comfortable in the back seat’ and ‘more confident behind the wheel,’ Uber said. The rollout comes despite an ongoing class action lawsuit in California, filed by Uber drivers who argue the move discriminates against men. Uber said around one-fifth of its drivers in the US are women, although the ratio varies by city. Uber’s Women Preferences was launched on Monday in response to women riders and drivers who told the firm they wanted ‘more control over how they ride and earn.’ Women can reserve a trip with a woman driver in advance or set their preference in the app to increase the likelihood of being matched with a woman.” (03/10/26)
- US FDA approves leucovorin for ultra- rare genetic disorder causing autism-like symptoms
Source: Reuters
“The U.S. FDA on Tuesday approved leucovorin, a decades-old generic drug, for use against an ultra-rare disorder called cerebral folate deficiency, but not for children with the much broader diagnosis of autism that it had promised last autumn to help, citing a lack of data. The approval for the rare genetic disorder, which causes autism-like symptoms, is a significant step back from the government’s September press conference when President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoted the drug as a treatment for autism symptoms. … Leucovorin, also known as folinic acid, is a form of folate, an essential B vitamin, or B9. It is currently used in people undergoing chemotherapy but can be prescribed off-label for other uses.” [editor’s note: That last bit is important — a drug is either “approved” or not “approved” by FDA. “Approval” supposedly means that it is 1) safe, and 2) effective for some condition, but no separate “approval” is required for it to be prescribed for OTHER conditions. Vis a vis autism, the FDA is “not recommending” it, not “not approving” it – TLK] (03/10/26)
- Israeli regime says Iranian regime is using cluster munitions
Source: SFGate
“Israel says Iran has been firing cluster munitions throughout their 10-day war — adding a complicated and deadly challenge to Israel’s already-stretched air defenses. The warheads burst open at high altitudes, scattering dozens of smaller bomblets across a wide area. The smaller bombs, which at night can resemble orange fireballs, are difficult to intercept and have proven lethal. Normally restrictive about releasing information on Iranian hits and damage, Israeli authorities in recent days have sought to educate the public about their dangers, which can persist as unexploded bombs on the ground even after civilians leave shelters. At least three people have been killed, including two at a construction site in central Israel on Tuesday. Over 120 countries have signed an international convention banning the use of cluster munitions, although Israel, the United States and Iran are among the nations that have not joined the treaty.” (03/10/26)
- Judge rejects NJ US Attorney “triumvirate” in latest blow to Trump prosecutors
Source: Politico
“A federal judge has ejected the leaders of the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, concluding that Attorney General Pam Bondi illegally appointed an unusual ‘triumvirate,’ at President Donald Trump’s whim, to oversee the powerful federal prosecuting office. ‘Why does the fate of thousands of criminal prosecutions in this District potentially rest on the legitimacy of an unprecedented and byzantine leadership structure?’ U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote. ‘The President doesn’t like that he cannot simply appoint whomever he wants.’ The sweeping, scolding 130-page decision repeatedly chides the administration for attempting to sidestep Senate confirmation and twist centuries-old precedents to work the president’s will.” (03/09/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/09/new-jersey-us-attorney-leaders-ruling-00819403
- Canada: Police investigate after shots fired at US consulate in Toronto
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“Unidentified suspects fired multiple shots at the US consulate in Toronto in what officials have described as a ‘national security incident’, as police work to determine the motive behind the attack. Authorities said the shooting occurred early on Tuesday morning at around 04:30 local time (08:30 GMT). Officers found shell casings at the scene, as well as damage to the building, said Frank Barredo, deputy chief of the Toronto Police. The US State Department said it was aware of the incident and was closely monitoring the situation in coordination with local law enforcement. It comes as Norwegian police investigate an explosion that occurred outside the US embassy in Oslo on Sunday.” (03/10/26)
- Social Media’s Down Side: No Fresh Starts
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“As humans, we’ve always found ourselves haunted by our past mistakes, both as a personal matter of guilt, shame, or embarrassment and as a communal matter of reputation (up to and including potential ostracism). On the latter front, I’m old enough — and I’m not THAT old — to remember a time when anyone but the most public of public figures could … move to another county and start over, among new neighbors who neither knew of, nor had any reason to suspect, their prior violations of social norms. Clean slates, and if they nailed the ‘sin no more’ part of ‘go and sin no more,’ new and better lives. … That kind of thing can’t really happen today … and for the last 20 years or so we’ve been watching what happens instead.” (03/10/26)
- Prostitution Should Be Decriminalized
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Laurence M Vance“A bill (SB26-097) was introduced in the second regular session of the Colorado General Assembly last month to decriminalize adult commercial sexual activity. … This is a bill that libertarians can unequivocally support. But not because libertarians think that prostitution is wholesome, good, and harmless, or because they don’t think that prostitution is immoral, shameful, and potentially dangerous. Libertarians simply believe that what consenting adults do on their own property, or on the property of others with permission, is none of the government’s business, none of the church’s business, and none of any individual’s business as long as their actions don’t infringe upon the personal or property rights of others. This is still true even if what consenting adults do is immoral, and even if the majority of Americans don’t approve of what they are doing.” (03/10/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/prostitution-should-be-decriminalized/
- I Think I Can Explain Trump’s Theory of Trade
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan“Donald Trump likes exports and foreign investment, and laments imports and trade deficits. Most economists find this a baffling bundle of preferences — and the more they know about international trade, the more baffled they are. Never mind the truism that the whole point of exports is to buy imports. Doesn’t Trump know that getting more foreign investment raises trade deficits by definition? How confused can you get? While I agree that Trump is terribly wrong about international trade, there’s a big difference between being wrong and being confused. While I doubt I’m ready to pass an Ideological Turing Test for Trumpian trade theory, I recently had a weird epiphany on the topic. After said epiphany, I feel capable of articulating roughly what Trump is thinking.” (03/10/26)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/i-think-i-can-explain-trumps-theory
- Interview With America’s Exiled Speech Dissident, Dimitri Simes
Source: Racket News
by Matt Taibbi“Dimitri Simes defected to the U.S. in the seventies and was a proud American for five decades, until he was criminally charged with a Soviet-style offense: being a journalist.” (03/10/26)
https://www.racket.news/p/interview-with-americas-exiled-speech
- The Urgent Search for an Alternative World Order
Source: The Nation
by Katrina vanden Heuvel“The Nation opposes Trump’s latest war, as do most Americans. But we are concerned that the response of many commentators to the Trump catastrophe is to hope for a return to a failed old order — a system of ‘rules’ and strategies so unpopular that voters have already rejected them. That naïve longing ignores the need for this country to take a new look at its place in the world.” (03/10/26)
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/alternative-foreign-policy-trump-wars/
- The Soft Disinformation Contagion
Source: Quillette
by Jorge Iniesta Cases“We live in a paradoxical informational landscape. Never before have citizens had access to such an abundance of data, expert commentary, real-time analysis, and historical context. The digital age promised a ‘Great Clarification,’ where the democratisation of information would serve as a universal solvent for ignorance. But despite this unprecedented availability, it has rarely been so difficult to form a coherent understanding of what is actually happening in the world. The problem is not ignorance in the classical sense. The contemporary public is not uninformed; on the contrary, it is hyper-informed.” (03/10/26)
https://quillette.com/2026/03/10/the-soft-disinformation-contagion-psychology-social-media-politics/
- Cocky Iran Hawks Forget the History of Blowback
Source: Washington Monthly
by Bill Scher“Bombing Iran may be the easy part. What hawks refuse to reckon with is everything that comes next.” (03/10/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/03/10/iran-hawks-forget-history/
- Our Long Road to War With Iran
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson“Until last year, for some 46 years, Iran enjoyed a North Korea-like reputation in the heart of the Middle East: always unpredictable, reckless, dangerous, inevitably to be nuclear, self-destructive, and nihilistic. All that said, was it really ever all that formidable? The mullahs came into power after the removal of the Shah and, subsequently, the interim secular socialists. They did so by taking American hostages, murdering opponents, executing former supporters, and transforming the most secular and modern of the Middle East Muslim nations into the most medieval that routinely hung homosexuals, adulterers, and almost anyone who questioned the authority of the ayatollahs. In other words, these were gruesome people, but they didn’t necessarily have a competent military.” (03/10/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/03/10/our-long-road-to-war-with-iran/
- Why the neutral interest rate cannot be established
Source: Cobden Centre
by Dr. Frank Shostak“Most commentators are of the view that what prevents the attainment of price stability is the deviation of the policy interest rate such as the federal funds rate from the neutral interest rate also known as the natural interest rate. The natural interest rate, it is held, is the one that is consistent with stable prices and a balanced economy. What is required then is that Fed policy makers successfully direct the federal funds rate towards the natural interest rate. … How is one to implement this framework of thinking? The main problem here is that the natural interest rate cannot be observed. How can one tell whether the market interest rate is above or below the natural interest rate?” (03/10/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/03/why-the-neutral-interest-rate-cannot-be-established/
- Is the Panic About Iran Political, Practical, or Even Real?
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter“It’s been just over a week since the United States and Israel decapitated the despotic regime in Iran, and while it may seem longer – they have been attacking us for 47 years, almost unanswered – the idea that this will be a ‘forever war’ or even a prolonged event is absurd. If you are inclined to believe that and can actually see the future, slip me some winning lottery numbers, won’t you? Since you aren’t psychic, maybe calm down or stop lying. I had no idea how endangered strawmen were until I saw Megyn Kelly rolling several out every single day to avoid criticizing her ‘friend’ Candace Owens for accusing her other ‘friend,’ Erika Kirk, of being involved in the murder of her husband, among other things. What some people will do for success …” (03/10/26)
- Trump’s alleged sexual assault of a minor: What we know and what’s still being hidden
Source: Popular Information
by Judd Legum“President Trump allegedly sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl who was trafficked to him by Jeffrey Epstein, according to documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) last Thursday. The White House insists the allegations are ‘completely baseless’ and ‘backed by zero credible evidence.’ … Since the initial release of the documents, two important developments have bolstered the credibility of the alleged victim. This new information has received little national media attention.” (03/10/26)
- Nepal climbs its Everest of honesty
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“In the thin Himalayan mountain air of Nepal, the unambiguous results of the March 5 national elections are breathing new vitality into hopes for clean and effective governance in one of the world’s least-developed nations. The relatively new Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has so far won about 74% of the 165 directly elected seats in the legislature. Its sweeping success positions Balendra Shah, the capital city’s youthful, antiestablishment mayor (and ex-rap star), to become prime minister. Nepal is the third South Asian country in recent years – after Sri Lanka and Bangladesh – to demand both democratic and generational change in political systems characterized by entrenched leadership, nepotism, and inefficiency. In all three nations, youth-led street protests resoundingly called for honesty and accountability, and ousted longtime political leaders, including – last September – Nepal’s four-term Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli.” (03/09/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0309/Nepal-climbs-its-Everest-of-honesty
- Is the UK Still a Liberal Democracy?
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Ramesh Thakur“The distortion between voting shares and seats won by the various parties highlights a crucial flaw in the universal belief that ‘representative’ democracy based on free and fair elections delivers governments that the majority of citizens voted into power. For in reality, voters propose but electoral systems dispose who gets to form government. With the same voting shares, the distribution of seats on the treasury and opposition benches would be dramatically different across the various Western democracies.” (03/10/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/is-the-uk-still-a-liberal-democracy/
- Even if team Trump wanted it, a military draft would be a fiasco
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Edward Hasbrouck“The option of conscripting Americans for military service in Iran may be ‘on the table’ but it won’t work. Here’s why.” (03/10/26)
- Wars Abroad Lead to Suppression at Home
Source: The American Conservative
by Brandan Buck“President George Washington’s often-read but rarely heeded Farewell Address includes a passage that has remained perennially relevant in American life. Reflecting on the domestic costs of entangling alliances, Washington warned ‘Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second [reinforce] the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.’ … This conflation is occurring again today, as supporters of President Donald Trump’s war on Iran have taken to accusing opponents of siding with the enemy.” (03/10/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/wars-abroad-lead-to-suppression-at-home/
- Sanders’s wealth tax dangles checks while torching the Constitution
Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Turley“‘Enough is enough.’ With those words, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders launched a push to impose a 5% annual wealth tax on America’s billionaires. With Rep. Ro Khanna, the legislation, ‘Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act,’ echoes the growing ‘eat-the-rich’ mantra on the left — seeking to replicate a disastrous push in California that has led to an exodus from that state and an estimated loss of $2 trillion in taxable assets. It is also flagrantly unconstitutional. Under the plan, Congress would target 938 billionaires to tap them for $4.4 trillion. That money would then be redistributed as a $3,000 direct payment to every man, woman and child in a household making $150,000 or less — $12,000 for a family of four. The timing of the move is telling.” (03/10/26)
- Collectivist Speak
Source: Pierre Lemieux
by Pierre Lemieux“Many people speak as if collectives were biological organisms who think and act like individuals.” (03/10/26)
- Thomas’s Confusion of Terms
Source: Law & Liberty
by Phillip W Magness“The Supreme Court has ruled against Donald Trump’s tariffs. In a sweeping and landmark decision, the court found by a 6-3 majority that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to impose tariffs by executive decree. Tariffs remain an Article I power of Congress under the US Constitution, a power that cannot be delegated away by speculative inferences from a vague statute that does not even mention the word ‘tariff.’ The Framers placed this power in the legislative branch for a reason: Tariffs are taxes, and the principle of ‘no taxation without representation’ provided a central rallying cry for the American Revolution. The decision has nonetheless drawn the ire of a number of conservatives, who otherwise appeal to history and the intentions of the Founders as a guiding principle for constitutional law.” (03/10/26)
- Will SCOTUS Review the Iran War’s Constitutionality? Don’t Count on It.
Source: Reason
by Damon Root“In a recent edition of this newsletter, I argued that the war with Iran is unconstitutional because President Donald Trump took the United States to war without first obtaining a congressional declaration of war as required by the U.S. Constitution. In response, a reader we’ll call ‘John A.’ wrote in to say the following: ‘Unconstitutional perhaps, but enforcement is political, not judicial.’ As a practical matter, ‘John A.’ is probably right. Despite the fact that the Constitution vests the power ‘to declare War’ exclusively in the hands of Congress via Article I, Section 8, the U.S. Supreme Court has proven itself unwilling over the past half-century or so to hear cases challenging the usurpation of that congressional power by the executive.” (03/10/26)
https://reason.com/2026/03/10/will-scotus-review-the-iran-wars-constitutionality-dont-count-on-it/
- The Rubble of Gaza and the Ghosts of Tokyo
Source: Common Dreams
by Eric Ross“Amid the so-called ‘ceasefire’, as imperial grifters and disaster capitalists jockey to remake Gaza in their image and in accordance with their own interests, the genocide has not abated. In its current phase, while the killing continues daily, its defining feature is the deliberate infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in part. From the outset, Israel has pursued this objective through a policy of urbicide: the systematic annihilation of Gaza City, Khan Younis, Rafah, Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, and Deir al-Balah. Palestinians remain steadfast in their refusal to be erased. Yet Israel’s assault has rendered Gaza nearly uninhabitable. This devastation cannot be easily dismissed with antiseptic euphemisms such as ‘collateral damage’, a term long employed to sanitize the mass slaughter of civilians. Intent can be inferred from actions, and policy from sustained patterns of conduct.” (03/10/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/bombing-from-tokyo-to-gaza
- How Concerning Are the February Jobs Numbers?
Source: The Daily Economy
by William J Luther“Slow job growth is expected when we remain near full employment and the working-age population is growing slowly.” (03/10/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/how-concerning-are-the-february-jobs-numbers/
- Israel Planned War on Iran for 40 Years. Everything Else Is a Smoke Screen
Source: Antiwar.com
by Jonathan Cook“It is near impossible to make sense – at least from the justifications on offer – of what US President Donald Trump really hopes to achieve with his and Israel‘s blatantly illegal war of aggression on Iran. … There is no clear rationale from Washington because the author of this attack is not to be found in either the White House or the Pentagon. This plan was cooked up in Tel Aviv decades ago.” (03/10/26)
- Iran War Supporters Invent a New and Absurd Justification: It Is All About China
Source: Glenn Greenwald
by Cole Crystal“Before Operation Epic Fury began, the Trump administration spent very little energy trying to justify the looming war with Iran. The few defenses they did offer were banal platitudes, just echoes of the case for the Iraq War from more than twenty years ago: that Iran was weeks away from obtaining a nuclear device, that their ballistic missile program posed a significant threat to American assets and allies in the region, and that the Iranian people deserved liberation via regime change. But not long after the bombing began, a new (admittedly more creative) justification emerged online and in the pro-Israel media that war supporters assume will be more persuasive to those doubting the wisdom of yet another Middle East conflict. The war with Iran, we are now told by many, is not really about Iran at all. It is, instead, all about China.” (03/09/26)
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/iran-war-supporters-invent-a-new
- On banning “gas station heroin,” Newsom gloats prematurely
Source: New York Post
by Marc Siegel“California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared war on kratom, an unregulated herbal medicine that comes from the leaves of the mitragyna plant in Southeast Asia. In a Facebook post last week, the governor boasted that state agents have removed over 3,300 kratom and related 7-OH products from the shelves of licensed businesses in California in just three weeks. This is in response to growing numbers of kratom-related deaths. Newsom points out that from 2020-22, 242 deaths in the state have been linked to kratom, with 27 due to kratom alone. Now that many kratom products have been stripped from the shelves of California gas stations and convenience stores, problem solved, right? WRONG. Unfortunately, Newsom’s response only scratches the surface of the problem.” [editor’s note: The “problem” is the idea that Newsom, Siegel, or anyone else should get to decide what other people eat, drink, smoke, snort, inject, etc. – TL] (03/09/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/03/09/opinion/gas-station-heroin-ban-newsom-gloats-too-soon/
- Why AI and Big Data Cannot Plan an Economy
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
“Contemporary academia’s equation of ‘science’ with ‘measurement’ represents a positivist assault on Ludwig von Mises’s praxeology, not due to his mathematical deficiency, but his superior ontological grasp. While physics successfully models inanimate bodies — where a copper atom reacts to heat according to immutable, universal constants — economics concerns human action driven by conscious, fluctuating intent. Because no constant dictates that a 10 percent income rise yields an 8 percent consumption increase, economic data is merely unrepeatable history, not scientific law. Attempting to extract universal predictions from this historical debris is ‘historicism’ — a methodological error akin to using Napoleonic War statistics to forecast World War III.” (03/09/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-ai-and-big-data-cannot-plan-economy
- The Corbett Report, episode 494
Source: The Corbett Report
“Meet The Ellisons: Zionists, Technocrats, Moguls.” (03/10/26)
https://corbettreport.com/meet-the-ellisons-zionists-technocrats-moguls/
- Capital Record, episode 288
Source: National Review
“The Crazy Things People Say.” (03/10/26)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/the-crazy-things-people-say/
- The Bryan Hyde Show, 03/10/26
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“It’s my weekly check-in with Eric Peters from Eric Peters Autos and we have a lot to discuss. One of the biggest challenges we all currently face is sifting truth from propaganda. And it’s not getting any easier.” (03/10/26)
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 03/10/26
Source: Antiwar.com
“Trump Says He Hasn’t ‘Won Enough’ in Iran, Israeli Strikes Kill Seven in Gaza, and More.” (03/10/26)